Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

An epic story about the decades-long struggle between China and the United States to dominate chip technology, which has become the world's most important resource.

The fact that microchips are the new oil—a limited resource that the contemporary world relies on—may surprise you. Computer chips are the cornerstone on which modern military, economic, and geopolitical power is based. Chips are used in almost everything, including microwaves, financial markets, cellphones, and missiles. Up until recently, America remained the top superpower by designing and manufacturing the quickest processors. America's advantage is now being eroded by rivals in Europe, Taiwan, Korea, and China most of all. As Chip War demonstrates, China is investing billions in a chip-building push to catch up to the US, despite the fact that it spends more money importing chips annually than it does oil. America's economic dominance and military might are on the line.

Economic historian Chris Miller describes how semiconductors came to be essential to contemporary life, how the United States dominated the design and production of chips, and how this technology was used in military applications. America's superior capacity to use computational power to its advantage over other powers is the reason for both its success in the Cold War and its military domination in the world. However, China is also catching up in this area, since its aspirations to develop chips and modernize its military go hand in hand.Due to America's failure to seize crucial elements of the chip-building process, there is a global chip scarcity as well as a renewed Cold War with a powerful rival that is frantically trying to close the gap.

Chip War is an insightful, topical, and captivating book that demonstrates how important it is to comprehend the fundamental function that chips play in order to comprehend the present status of politics, economics, and technology.